A Tail of Two Springers

Michelle stumbled on this the other day…. Liddie was ranked as the #2 English Springer Spaniel in Novice A Obedience in 2007 by Front & Finish magazine. And we didn’t even know. Guess I gotta check the F&F rankings more often….

http://frontandfinish.com/webstore/index.cfm/fuseaction/feature.display/feature_id/122/index.cfm

With just a week to go before the National Specialty in Dallas we’re in the midst of a frenzy of activity…

The girls did a practice match with the Tucson Kennel Club on Saturday. it didn’t go quite as well as we would have hoped. Cali wasn’t focused in ther ring and blew both the broad jump and retrieve over the high jump. Then I blew the drop on recall. Arrrrgggghhhh! That’s why we do practice matches - to get all of the mistakes out before it counts for real.

While Cali and I were bobbling though the open routine, Liddie and Michelle were ding their long exercise in the next ring. I didn’t realize it until too late but I was standing behind Michelle right in Liddie’s line of sight during the long sit and apparently my arm waving and animated discussions with the judge were too much for Liddie who got up from her long sit. That’s the first time I can remember her ever breaking a long exercise.

Anyway… we’re hoping that we’ll all do better in Texas. It’s an indoor show, and the girls have never competed indoors before, we it’ll be interesting to see how they react.

 We did decide to enter them in brace obedience as well. We still haven’t really trained much for brace work, but they do OK… not exactly perfect score candidates, but they *might* sqeak out a placement. Brace is all about having fun and having a great photo oppoortunity anyway, so it really doesn’t mater.

They got their “show” groom yesterday, and we’re running around getting everything ready to leave for the 900 mile drive to Dallas on Saturday morning. I’m not looking forward to the long drive, but an definitely looking forward to the Specialty.